Case Assignment: Ethics Case
In a minimum of 850-words paper, respond to Case attached to this assignment page.
Ensure that your paper is organized and formatted to APA 6th edition.
minimum: at least 1 reference
Case 16-5
Skeptical Lens
Professional skepticism is at the core of ultimately performing a quality audit. Below are
three case studies that will focus your attention on what it takes to be a skeptical auditor
when performing journal entry testing.
Three cases with specific facts and circumstances are described below.
Case Study A — Not Just a Trivial Item
I joined a Big Four accounting firm straight out of college a few years ago as a staff
accountant. My first assignment on an audit engagement was a learning experience I
would never forget; it was a practical lesson perhaps even more valuable than my newly
minted accounting degree.
On our way to the client, Susan, a senior accountant and one of my new colleagues,
cautioned me about the CFO:
“He has a bit of a reputation,” she said, adding, “Let me know if you have problems. And
don’t let him browbeat you!” That comment, as an introduction to my brand-new career,
was just a little unsettling.
I was given what seemed to be a nice, safe task: testing routine journal entries, which
involved selecting items from the population and examining the supporting evidence. I
asked a clerk for some reconciliations and a little later, to my surprise, I got a call from
the CFO himself to ask why we were working on “trivial items” as he called it.
“We hired you for the big picture, not this kind of stuff,” was his terse comment, and he
hung up before I could respond.
We were under a tight deadline to get the audit completed, and after several days there
was no sign of the reconciliations I’d requested. I talked to Susan and later Mike, the
engagement partner.
When I finally received the reconciliations and tested them, I noticed a high volume of
journal entries that even to my inexperienced eyes seemed a little out of the ordinary.
Case Study B — Journal Entries Reveal a Puzzling Pattern
For several years, I’ve been a senior audit manager on a subsidiary of a foreign entity.
We conduct the annual audit, with no review of quarterly financial information.
One year, a few months before we started fieldwork, the client hired a new controller and
made some other personnel changes to the finance team. When we began our work, we
found more small errors than usual, specifically in revenue and accounts receivable.
We attributed the errors to the change in personnel and were not overly concerned, but
we modified our procedures for testing revenue and looked for journal entries made to
revenue with offsets to unusual accounts.
We soon noticed a trend: entries to revenue often had an offset to atypical accounts. The
pattern was puzzling because the entries both increased and decreased revenue during the
course of the year, so it was difficult to understand any potential reasoning.
As the reporting deadline approached, the partner and I sat down with the controller to
ask for an explanation.
In response to our questions, the controller produced a spreadsheet and showed us that all
the topside entries netted out to a minimal effect on the final full-year results. He
indicated that the entries were made with the agreement of the CEO.
Since we were performing an annual audit of the financial statements on which these
entries had little effect, the controller evidently felt our questions were satisfied.
“But what was the purpose of the entries?” our partner asked. “We need to understand
why these topside entries have been made,” he persisted.
There was a long, uncomfortable pause. Finally, the controller sighed and said, “Well,
you may not like the answer. Let me ask the CEO to join us.”
They explained that they tried to make the quarterly results approximate the budgeted
amounts, solely for the purpose of reporting to the foreign parent. This was intended to
avoid having to explain unfavorable quarterly variances, a normal part of this company’s
business cycle. The CEO added that his team fully understood their business, and they
were confident that the full-year results would approximate the budget.
Case Study C — You Just Don’t Understand Journal Entries
I was a first-year senior assigned to the audit of a large client. I welcomed the challenge
and the learning experiences I was sure would come with it.
Every year the engagement team deliberately varied the nature, timing, and extent of
audit procedures, and this year the team planned to test an account balance that didn’t
vary much year to year and was seen as a low-risk.
However, as we began testing the account balance, we realized it would involve a lot
more work than we expected. It seemed that there was a large volume of journal entries
posted to the account representing allocations and expenses from nearly every location
across the United States.
We needed to make requests of entity personnel at various locations to understand the
nature and purpose of the journal entries that had been posted to the account. Of those
personnel, relatively few had ever interacted directly with an external auditor.
Initially, entity personnel were more than willing to help, but no one person seemed to
know the whole story. We were constantly being directed from one person to another,
and each person could offer only partial explanations for the journal entries about which
we were inquiring.
Soon it became routine for us to be on a call with eight or ten entity personnel from the
various groups involved in the journal entries, trying to gain a full understanding of the
purpose of the journal entries and underlying allocations and expenses.
As our work continued, the frustration of both parties increased, and we noticed a distinct
change in the tenor of the calls.
Instead of focusing on answering our questions, the entity personnel believed that we
were wasting their time; they became defensive.
“It’s been done this way forever,” “you’re spending way too much time on insignificant
items,” and “you just don’t understand the way we handle expenses,” were some of the
comments that fell on my inexperienced ears. To be honest, at times I felt uncomfortable,
and sometimes it was a bit intimidating. But I knew we had a job to do.
As we neared the completion of our fieldwork, explanations and support for several of
the journal entries remained open and unresolved, prompting some rather pointed internal
questions from the partner in charge of the audit engagement.
Required:
1. Formulate a definition of professional skepticism.
2. Why is professional skepticism important?
3. What are the barriers to applying professional skepticism?
4. Read each case study and evaluate what you would do next.
5. Given the knowledge gained from these case studies, what are the key elements to
applying professional skepticism?
